It's good to get the weapons out of action

Amen to that...

but bad that the English are staying.

Are they? The British Army is moving out of NI. Or are you referring to the *existence* of NI? If so, I refer you to "self-determination" - the right of people to choose their own destiny. In 1930 there were more people in NI who chose to stay part of the UK than who didn't; that remains the case today.

We have a city center monument to the 1840s famine, which forced millions of starving Irish to come and settle here in the United States. We will never forget our roots.

Great. But that doesn't make you Irish, just an American of Irish descent.

And for the original statement - well it's not really news, is it? As Keith said, the IRA were smart enough to realise that they couldn't fight one-on-one with the British Army, so they adopted the same shoot-and-run (or bomb-and-run) tactics that are currently serving the Iraqi insurgents so well. The recipe is: kill some of your enemy from hiding; then run and blend in with the civilian population. It ain't a fair fight, but war isn't. It's not cowardice either, because that's one thing you couldn't accuse the IRA of. Or not the IRA fighting the British Army in Ireland anyway - the bastards who put bombs in pubs and shopping centres to deliberately target civilians are another breed entirely.

Graham.